What the man did for Somaliland and all Somalis is:
Neutralized Djibouti, Puntland and Kililka. This denied role and place for Meles Ethiopia. Fortunately Meles was also appreciative and respectful even when he did not like the results. That saved a lot of lives, since North generally is more armed, more worldly with different powers, more balanced in fighting each other..etc.
To this day this general red line survives regardless what leaders from this or that enclave might say from time to time.
He also never degraded any Somali in order to get favors from any foreigner.
That also still works to this day. Never will Somaliland or Djibouti undermine a Somali from anywhere even as far as NFD, in order to get favors from other non-Somali countries.
Example the ICU time would have been perfect time for Somaliland to take advantage, yet Somaliland stayed totally out of it, even as ICU threatened. If Somaliland had inteferred, it would have gone too deep with Ethiopia and difficult to recover self autronomy self respect.